Focus on Funding for MLK Hospital

Re “Put Hospital’s Survival First,” editorial, Jan. 2: The survival of Martin Luther King Jr. Medical Center and the survival of the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science are not equal considerations of Los Angeles County and its Department of Health Services. Drew University will survive because its fundamentals are being reviewed and problems addressed. MLK hospital will only survive if and when the DHS allocates adequate funds, management, staff and oversight to assure its survival at a standard that the county can maintain.

The problem is fundamentally one of finance. Two reports by the California state auditor have stated that the funds are not present and will not be so in the foreseeable future.

To suggest that the Board of Supervisors consider severing its contractual ties with Drew University is premature and, based on activities currently underway, irresponsible.

Drew University will survive, and it is challenged to have and maintain a doctor-training relationship with a hospital to provide needed training for its residents and interns. To conclude that it can -- or should -- only have that relationship with MLK hospital or any county hospital in order to give service misses the point.

A more appropriate pattern of questions to ask could be: When did the county Department of Health Services first know of the underfunding and inadequate staffing at MLK hospital, given its mandate to serve, and what did it do to assure its proper functioning?

Mervyn M. Dymally

Assemblyman, D-Compton

*

To paraphrase an old World War II slogan, we need to “shape up” Drew University, not “ship [it] out.” Who does The Times think will go to South Los Angeles and take care of the poor, mostly uninsured patients who need hospitalization, if physicians in training are no longer available? Certainly not doctors in private practice.

These patients are often the sickest of the sick. They require very intensive, round-the-clock care. Over half of the physicians who train at King/Drew Medical Center end up practicing in poor, medically underserved communities. If this source of physicians is removed, people in these communities will receive even less medical care than at present.

Mayer B. Davidson MD

Director, Clinical Trials Unit

Charles R. Drew University

Los Angeles